What Was Mary Alice
by Skipperdee171
Summary: The story of a girl known as Mary Alice Brandon, and how she came to be Alice Cullen. Set in modern times. Not what I usually write.


**WOOT! It's finally here! Geez, this is the longest chapter I've ever written... ever. Make sure to tell me if you love/hate it. This is really different from what I usually write, so I want some feedback on my _other _style of writing. Thanks!**

**In case you were wondering, this is a story about the pre-vampire Alice, and how she wound up with the Cullens. However, it's set in the 2000's instead of the 1900's. ENJOY!**

**Disclaimer: I am not Stephenie Meyer. Or a lemur. Or a talking car.**

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I wanted to be famous. As soon as I turned 16, about four years from now, I was going to go try out for some reality show on television and everyone would love me. But after the night of September 10, 2001 (and the day that followed) I knew that this was never going to happen, and for such a different reason than you would expect.

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I hate this time of the day so much more than any other. It was the time when I would lie awake in my bed, sometimes trying to fall asleep, others trying not. Because I knew that as soon as I even let my eyelids droop, I would begin to dream.

Sometimes the dreams were wonderful, complete with success and happiness and sometimes ice cream. If I had had one of these dreams the night before, I would try to fall asleep as quickly as possible. I _loved _those dreams. But some nights the dreams would be horrific, with death and hatred and tragedy. Those were the times when I tried not to sleep.

This was one of those nights.

Lately, I had been having the same horrible dream over and over again, always from a different angle or view. It always began with a plane gliding gracefully through the sky, and then something would go horribly wrong and it would crash into a building. One night I had been a passenger on the plane, a worker in the destroyed office building. But usually I was a distraught onlooker.

The worst part about it was that halfway through the dreams I would figure out I was dreaming and try to escape it. I never could. I was forced to watch as the building crumbled to the ground and people ran screaming. And I could never do anything about it.

I could feel myself getting sleepier, slowly slipping into that state where it started to affect my judgment of whether of not closing my eyes would make me sleep. I pulled my CD player out from under my bed, turning it up to full blast. I really didn't care if my mom or dad or Cynthia heard it. They were already sound asleep.

At first the music blasted, keeping me wide awake. But then it slipped into the strategically placed slow songs toward the end, and I started to drift. I struggled to stay awake, but by the 17th track, my eyes were shut.

"_It's something unpredictable_

_But in the end it's right_

_I hope you had the time of your life…"_

**~*~*~*~*~**

"Mary! Come on, Mary, we're going to be late!" my mother shouted from behind my door.

I rolled over, burying my face in the pillow. I felt seriously crappy. There was no way that anyone was going to drag me out of bed today. No way.

I had had the same dream last night, only this time I was standing directly below the crumbling building, and woke up in the middle of the night after it fell on me. I had been staring blankly at my ceiling ever since that, feeling utterly horrible. The scene kept playing over and over in my head, still more vivid than any dream could possibly be. There was no way anyone was dragging me to school.

"MARY! NOW!" My mom banged on my door.

"No," I managed to mumble. I heard the _click _of my mom unlocking the door with a paper clip, and I curled myself up even tighter.

"Mary, if you do not get out of bed this instant, I swear to God…" She didn't bother to finish her threat. She ripped the covers off of me, but I just pulled the pillow over my head.

"I feel sick." I muttered, but my words were muffled by the pillow.

My mom somehow managed to understand my words. "Sit up," she ordered. I did, and she pressed the back of her hand to my forehead. Her hand felt warm, meaning my forehead was cold, and I didn't have a fever. Crap.

"You're fine," she mumbled, stepping over one of the many piles of clothes in my room. "Now get dressed, because I'm leaving in 15 minutes."

I threw my pillow on the ground furiously and grabbed a random t-shirt and some jeans off the floor and trudged off toward the bathroom. Sometimes, slamming a door just made life better. So I did.

Most girls my age would have a panic attack if they knew they only had 15 minutes to do their hair, makeup, and select the perfect outfit for the day. Of course, I wasn't like most girls my age.

I threw on the t-shirt and jeans, simultaneously running my fingers through my hair just to make sure there weren't any ridiculous knots in it. My hair was shoulder length and manageable when it wanted to be. When it didn't, it usually took a grand total of a minute and a half to fix it.

Before leaving the bathroom, I took a few Tylenol pills to see if it would cure the feeling of terror in the pit of my stomach. Somehow I knew it wouldn't, but I felt a bit better knowing I was trying.

I clomped down the stairs, running into the kitchen looking for some breakfast. I grabbed a Poptart out of the cupboard and plopped down at the table next to Cynthia and across from my father. She was going over her homework like the little goody-goody she was.

If you were going to pick two girls to be sisters, Cynthia and I would be the last pair that would come to mind. We were polar opposites. She was like the girl who was perfect at everything, where I did just _okay._ She was ridiculously popular, where I was a nobody. Her favorite color was pink, a color I was allergic to. And to top it off, she was three years younger than me.

I shoved the first Poptart in my mouth, picking up the section of the paper that my dad wasn't reading and tried to distract myself from the plane crash that was still vivid in my mind. Coincidentally, it was the political section, which I considered the second least interesting section (next to sports). I forced myself to read about the results of some Norwegian election just to keep down the feeling that made me want to barf all over the newspaper.

I heard my mother clomping down the stairs and automatically stood up, grabbing my backpack and slinging it over my shoulder. Cynthia followed suit and she skipped, literally _skipped _out the door to the car. Mom was stirring up a hurricane like she did every morning at the last minute. I swear, that woman held the record for procrastinating. She scrambled out the door, and I followed.

I didn't bother turning on the radio since the school was just a few blocks from our house. I could never listen to a full song, and my mom would make every attempt to push me out of the car since I refused to get out until the song was over. Not wanting to revisit _that _scenario again, I sat back and watched as Biloxi, Mississippi whizzed by.

As my mother pulled up to the school Cynthia and I got out. I glanced quickly at the clock. It was 7:40, and school started in about 10 minutes. I grabbed my backpack once again and slammed my car door. My mother gunned the engine, rushing off to her job as a math teacher at the high school. Fortunately, their classes started about 20 minutes later than the elementary schools', so she was usually on time when she rushed like this in the morning.

I sighed and trudged toward the school, ready to face whatever life decided to throw at me today.

Or so I thought.

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**Well, there it was! Hope you liked! If you did, REVIEW! If you didn't, REVIEW! Constructive criticism is ALWAYS welcome!**


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